Sale Specialist School hopes to land budget funds

The Sale Specialist School has been told it will have money allocated in today's Victorian budget for land to build a new school.

The staff and committee have been lobbying for a new school site for 12 years because of chronic overcrowding at its two Sale campuses.

Principal Shelagh Donegan says money is also being allocated in the budget to start planning the new school.

She says the new school has to be big enough for increasing enrolments.

"There's going to be an expression of interest called from people who have land to sell that would meet our requirements," she said.

"The best possible site for our school will be selected, the purchase will go through, then the master planning will start.

"All of that will be in place ready to go to the budget next year for the money to build the new school."

Several state MPs, including the Minister for Education Martin Dixon, have visited the school promising action.

The school council's president, Allan Rankin, says it is time for politicians to back up their talk with money.

"We certainly have a view that we want to not only meet the needs of the current enrolment but we want to also be in a position to meet the likely demand for specialist education facilities going forward and so we would hope there's enough foresight shown that enables an appropriate site to be secured," he said.

Meanwhile, the Bass Coast Shire wants to see funding in the budget for its Education and Learning Precinct at Wonthaggi.

The Bass Coast Specialist School is already at the site and there are plans to relocate the Wonthaggi Secondary College alongside it.

That is expected to cost about $20 million and the shire's Allan Bawden hopes the State Government will allocate funding to kickstart the project.

He says the current secondary college campus was built in the 1920s.

"It's very overcrowded, the building stock is very old and it's acknowledged by the Government that it's one of, I think, three projects in Gippsland that need to be done fairly soon," he said.

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